In responding to an item in HCC Lost and Found, Chet Kelley sent me a copy of an old Fred Horsley book from 1953 titled, simply, “Dream Cars.” It’s a bit tattered, but it was still worth flipping through for more than just the content that he directed me to. Inside, it’s chock full of the most cracked-out, pie-in-the-sky, don’t-tell-me-this-can’t-be-done automotive ideas up to that time, and not just from Detroit, where we typically think so-called dream cars originate. Instead, the book’s full of home restylings, home re-engineerings, ventures that tried to enter production and ideas floated by atomic age teenagers blissfully sure that the jetpack future was just around the corner.

So, in other words, exactly my kinda stuff.

And exactly the kinda stuff that some of our readers dig. Say, Myron, what do you make of the car in the above photo? The only thing the book mentions about it is that it’s “another car with a look of tomorrow… with a supercharged Porsche engine.”

And for Geoff Hacker, this photo of a Vaughan-Singer 1500 special, “an example of how a few are following up the experimental development of plastic bodies.” Looks like a Glasspar to me, and indeed, with a little poking around, I see that Bill Tritt did indeed adapt a Glasspar G2 body to a Singer 1500 chassis.

You wouldn’t think I’d pass up an opportunity to post another photo of the Mathis VL 333, would you? According to the caption, the photo was taken at the 1946 Paris auto show. There’s some substantial differences in the window frames between this car and the black VL 333 I posted a year and a half ago, but the most interesting thing about this photo is the width of the front end, something not real evident in other photos.

Finally, I found this photo of a wide-eyed young gentleman in his triple-headlamp three-wheeler, but no accompanying information either in the text or in the photo’s caption. I think those grille vents are off a LaSalle.

First, he sent along a scan of the cover of the July 1952 issue of Speed Age, which featured the Haller Taifun, our mystery Porsche-engine car. Myron added:

There’s a very good chance that the Haller Taifun was powered by an Okrasa engine rather than a Porsche engine. The 40hp Okrasa engine with twin Solexes was a pretty hot set-up in ’51 and it would have been much more accessible than a low production and very expensive Porsche mill. In any event, we need to track it down!

Second, Geoff noted that he spoke with Bill Tritt regarding the Vaughan-Singer, and information about that car will be in his forthcoming book.

Finally, Geoff also identified the three-wheeler as the Jetmobile, which was powered by a rear-mounted Ford V8-60 and automatic transmission. Richard Harp of Boonesboro, Maryland, built the car in the early 1950s using a belly tank and two wingtip auxiliary fuel tanks and claimed it was capable of 110 miles per hour.

WOW! The Porsche powered thing has me dazzled and befuddled so now I have a mission. My original guess would have been some sort of Fageol experimental piece since he did aerodynamic stuff with fins and he was using supercharged Porsche engines. The confusing part is the foreign looking license plate. Stay tuned…